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America watches as the skin of Lee Thomas, news anchor, turns from black to white on national television.Photo: AP

'I'm a black man turning white on television'

Corey Williams | December 18, 2007 - 10:50AM

DETROIT - Lee Thomas' skin is betraying him.

His once brown, even complexion is now mottled with pale patches
around his eyes and mouth, along his nose and on his ears; his
arms, shoulders and chest are speckled and blotched.

"I'm a black man turning white on television and people can see
it," says Thomas, an anchor and entertainment reporter for the
local Fox Broadcasting Company affiliate. "If you've watched me
over the years, you've seen my hands completely change from brown
to white."

Thomas has vitiligo, a disorder in which pigment-making cells
are destroyed. White patches appear on different parts of the body,
tissues in the mouth and nose, and the retina.

"There is no cause. There is no cure, and it's very random,"
Thomas says. "I could turn all the way white or mostly white."

As many as 65 million people worldwide have the disorder,
including up to 2 million in the United States.

Few people, outside medical professionals and those with the
disease, had heard the term "vitiligo" until Michael Jackson
revealed in the early 1990s that the disorder was behind his skin
turning brown to white.

It is not fatal, but experts say vitiligo robs people of
self-confidence, evokes ridicule and unpleasant stares, and pushes
some into unforced seclusion.

The 40-year-old Thomas says that's not where the disorder needs
to be. He openly talks about vitiligo and how it has affected his
life and career, and has written a book about his journey titled
"Turning White: A Memoir of Change." Along the way, Thomas says he
has met others with the disorder and has become a celebrity
spokesman for the Columbus, Ohio-based National Vitiligo
Foundation.

"When was the last time you saw someone with vitiligo handling
your food? It is the public's image that it is some leprosy-type of
disease," he says. "A lot of folks feel this disease has trapped
them and kept them away from their life goals."

That was Thomas' fear.

He uses a combination of creams and makeup to cover the growing
patches of skin - which he calls devoid of colour - on his face,
hands and arms. Viewers, co-workers and, for years, his basketball
buddies, were none the wiser.

Only family members and those closest to him knew the secret he
had kept since age 25.

Thomas first noticed a change after getting a haircut while
working in Louisville, Kentucky. He looked in a mirror and thought
the barber had nicked him. A closer look revealed a pale spot,
about the size of a quarter.

"I got two more on the other side of my scalp, on my hand and
one in the corner of my mouth," he recalls in an interview from the
station's studio. "That's when I went to the doctor and got
diagnosed."

He did not let it slow down his blossoming career. From
Louisville, he soon landed at WABC in New York for three years
beginning in 1994. After a short freelancing stint in Los Angeles,
Thomas found his way to WJBK in Detroit in 1997. He has carved a
niche in the Motor City market with his quirky, upbeat and humorous
reporting style; his confidence, constant smile and positive air on
the set mirrors his demeanor off the set as well.

Even though Thomas uses makeup to conceal his skin
discolouration, he realised the vitiligo was becoming more obvious
when he could not hide it from a preschooler during a story about a
playground. His two-toned hands frightened the girl, who began to
cry.

"I thought my career was over," says the Emmy award winner who
routinely travels to Hollywood for one-on-one interviews with
celebrities including Will Smith, Tom Cruise and Halle Berry.

So he gathered himself one day and approached the station's news
director, prepared to walk away from television.

Dana Hahn, WJBK's vice president of news, says the station was
concerned about Thomas possibly leaving because of the
condition.

"Lee is also a friend and we wanted to help," she says. "He had
covered it up so well, we really didn't realise the impact it was
having or how far it had spread."

Thomas finally agreed to tell his story on television in
November 2005.

After the first segment on Thomas' vitiligo aired, Hahn says he
took a leave of absence and missed the initial response from
viewers.

"I received 40 to 50 e-mails a day the entire time he was gone,"
Hahn says. "So many people found support and encouragement in his
story. I've never seen the kind of response to any story in my 12
years at Fox 2."

At the time, Thomas was already writing his book.

"As all those things happened, the tone of the book changed," he
says. "I was writing for all those people who were afraid to come
outside."

Dr Sancy Leachman, associate professor of dermatology at the
University of Utah, calls vitiligo stigmatising, driving some to
even consider suicide.

"They feel people are looking at them all of the time," she
says. "They are very self-conscious about people staring at them in
the grocery line. It can be a very demoralising condition."

Thomas acknowledges he even preferred the security of solitude
to the awkward stares of strangers when not wearing his makeup.

"There were times when I would not come out of the house," he
says. "I call it a mental war. It was me saying, 'I don't want to
deal with it today.' I never stayed in for very long. I know people
who stay in now for months at a time."

When he's out socially now, Thomas forgoes the makeup he wears
on camera.

He met his girlfriend of seven months, Karen Tate, at a
vegetarian restaurant they both enjoy. She said when they're out
together, she notices some people staring and making muffled
comments about his appearance.